


Burning Down the House

by blueskypenguin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 13:30:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3730717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueskypenguin/pseuds/blueskypenguin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically, he’s been in a little spy bubble, doing his goddamn job, and then Nat’s there telling him…</p><p>...telling him his job doesn’t exist anymore and by the way, we were working for the bad guys, didn’t you see the news?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning Down the House

**Author's Note:**

> Small thing I wrote post-Winter Soldier which I thought about extending but never got around to. Not entirely canon compliant.

Clint is on a radio-silence surveillance mission, one of those need-to-knows where he speaks to no-one and his only contact with the rest of the world are the conversations he imagines with his team-mates, so it takes time for word to reach him. 

Of course when he says ‘team-mates’, he mostly just means Nat and Steve; Stark’s pretty much just a technical kind of consultant nowadays rather than the suited kind he was before, and Thor only shows up to prevent major cities of Earth getting obliterated. Clint’s gutted he missed the elves, if only to pay forward a lifetime of Tolkein jokes. And Coulson… he shouldn’t know Coulson went and got himself a new little team of playmates on the down-low, but he does. That’s that.

He doesn’t even have a handler for this mission (it’s really more suited to Nat’s talents than his own, he’s not sure how he pulled this one) with most people being drafted over to Project Insight.

Basically, he’s been in a little spy bubble, doing his goddamn job, and then Nat’s there telling him…

...telling him his job doesn’t exist anymore and by the way, we were working for the bad guys, didn’t you see the news?

Well. 

Shit.

Clint abandons the mission - he realises now it was just to get him out of the way, or possibly to bore him to death because this business man is as unexpectedly beige and above-board as they come - and he and Nat go on a four-day bender.

He doesn’t take the time to worry about himself, not just yet; he worries about Nat first. She’s lost, as lost as he saw her when he brought her in (he hopes she doesn’t blame him, he wasn’t to know, they fooled the world good), but she has this strange mix of peace in with all the cracked edges.

It’s a calm, not before a storm but after, when the winds have died down and the rain has stopped its relentless barrage against the roofs, when you take your first steps out of the shelter and assess the damage, only to find your home destroyed and your neighbourhood decimated, and you have no idea where to start, no clue how to find the pieces let alone how to pick them up safely or glue them together (if they’ll even fit). It’s a mess, the world is a mess, Natasha was the storm and Dorothy of Oz all at once and as she knocks back twice as many vodkas to match with Clint’s drunkenness, she lets slip quietly to him that she only regrets so many of their neighbours got away unscatched.

They continent hop up from South Africa up to Europe, using all their tricks (Nat’s tricks) to lay low, but Natasha’s words keep him up at night.

He feels no guilt, per se. He followed his orders, he didn’t even know they were dirty. It’s a horrible excuse, “I was only following orders,” with the worst of connotations, but Clint knows he was doing good. He knows he picked off the bad guys, he knows he protected the innocent, and he knows he never took lives in vain. He knows Nat can’t say the same, her methods are more shady and he’s the one with frequent attacks of conscience (read: Black Widow’s defection to SHIELD), but he knows they can’t shoulder the guilt of HYDRA’s actions.

They can avenge the innocents HYDRA picked off, the lives they ruined, the best friend they robbed Cap of and the parents Tony may have done better without but never would have wished dead. They can avenge.

He wants to suggest this to Natasha, but she’s not quite ready. She needs time and space.

He presses a kiss to her cheek, vows a promise to welcome her back whoever she decides to be, and leaves her in the little Paris apartment to fumble towards a new life.

\--

He doesn’t hide his return into the US, he doesn’t have a chance to. He returns to Cape Town, returns to the little den he’d been using, returns to find Tony Stark sat at the pristine breakfast bar with a coffee, furiously typing away on a souped-up version of one of his own company’s laptops. 

He’s surprised, but only a little. “Stark.”

“About time, I was beginning to think you would never come back,” Stark slams the laptop shut, but his body language as he approaches Clint isn’t hostile. Clint’s drawn into a tight hug, and Tony squeezes hard. It’s unexpected, but Clint’s all too happy to clap him on the back as he squeezes back. “Did she fill you in?”

He doesn’t need to ask who. “Some of it. Enough. How’d you know?”

“It’s Natasha,” replies Tony. “I’ll fill you in on the rest, developments since she gave the Congressional Committee the finger and swanned off. I’m a little jealous, I thought I was the only one able to rile them that away.” Tony’s grin is taut, his face a little wan. He’s not been sleeping, Clint can tell; he doesn’t look post-New York bad but it’s not far off. 

“Lead the way.”

Stark leads Clint up the fire-escape to the roof, to a helicopter which takes them to an airstrip with a private jet. They don’t say a word until they’re inside and in the air.

“Nat said we’re fucked,” is what Clint says, paraphrasing (though not by much). 

Stark nods into a glass of scotch. “Not totally, but close. We lost 6000 people on the carriers, we’re assuming they were all HYDRA. Fury’s in the wind, Cap and Falcon are on Bucky’s tail and they put me in charge of fixing this mess. Well, I walked in and started giving orders and they let me,” Tony grins again, still strained and unhappy. “SHIELD is dead, Barton, and HYDRA covered their tracks all too well.”

“What about personnel?”

“Temporary re-assignment. Some are in the wind, mostly mid-level management. The directors of the academies who were neck deep in this shit have committed suicide rather than face justice. I have JARVIS working round the clock to investigate every single employee, student, intern - hell,” Tony drains his glass and has it refilled in all of a second, “I even have the caterers under investigation, but even JARVIS can’t do that in a jiffy. Anyone with even a smudge of HYDRA on their file is being tossed into a hole to be dealt with, one way or another. Publicity means we can’t disappear them like we would have, but the Patriot Act gives us ironic freedom here.”

“Christ. How many?”

“It’s been a week since. JARVIS started on Wednesday, he’s vetted maybe 12% of the personnel and we’re running out of cells.”

Clint slumps. “Anyone… unexpected?” He’s not thinking of Coulson, he’s not, but he also is; those ducklings of his came from the Academy. Clint's yet to meet Skye but May's solid as a rock. He hopes they had no clue, even if it could break their belief in the system. Hell, the system didn't deserve their belief in the first place.

“A few. Bucky, well,” Tony frowns and corrects himself not-quite-as-sarcastically as Clint thinks Tony would like to sound, “The Winter Soldier killed Sitwell for talking. Hill’s clean, and that other one too. Hand? Seems she’s been killed by HYDRA.” His hands flex around the glass of scotch, “Coulson’s alive and it stinks, but it wasn’t exactly HYDRA that brought him back, at least so it seems. Water’s a bit murky there, but Coulson himself is clean. His team bar one too, I’ve drafted them in for assistance.”

"What are they like?"

"Wait,” Stark narrows his eyes.“You knew?!"

"I knew," Clint rubs the back of his neck self-consciously. "I wasn't supposed to though. Had to give Director Fury certain assurances. Well, guess he's not the Director any more."

"I am so very sick of being lied to, Clint. If I hear the term 'compartmentalisation' one more fucking time, I'm going to raze DC and start over." Tony clearly means his threat to be rhetorical, or at least he doesn't expect Clint to elaborate and the archer is relieved; he doesn't have much to say on the matter of Coulson that he wants Stark to hear. "Skye is with JARVIS on information control, FitzSimmons are using every biochemical and technological method known to mankind plus a few they invented themselves to vet selected personnel for the new SHIELD while Mulan and Agent conduct interrogations of the dirty ones."

"Alright. Where do I come in?"

"You're an Avenger, Clint," finally, Tony's feral grin looks almost gleeful, "I need you to help us Avenge."


End file.
